How to Improve Your Affiliate Income

If you have a website or blog that is getting traffic but it is not making you much money then it is probably time to take an unbiased look at it to see where you might be going wrong. Oftentimes a few simple changes can make the difference between making a few pennies and raking in some big dollars.

Here are few things you should consider:

1. Does your affiliate website have the ability to promote a product?

This may seem like an obvious question but it is often missed in the rush to set up a website. If there are only one or two products that you can promote on your website then it might be a little harder to make money as you don’t offer a diverse range of products to meet your visitors needs or wants. Also if you rely on only one product and that product is no longer available or you can’t find a merchant who has an affiliate program then you are leaving yourself vunerable if you only rely on the one website to make you money.

2. Are you choosing the right products?

Merchants will offer anywhere between 1% to 30% and even more as a commission for a sale. In my opinion 1% is really not much of an incentive to sell a product. Imagine making $1 per sale on a $100 product. You would need to sell at least 100 per day to make it worthwhile and that is a huge undertaking to begin with. Stick with no less than 7% and preferably around 10% or more.

Also think about the price of the products you promote. If each of the products you promote are sold for $2 and your commission is 10% then you will only make .20c per sale. It’s really not worth the effort. Try to stick with products that are over $100 each and more if possible. Imagine selling a $2000 product a day and receiving 10% commission – that’s $200 in your pocket. You could effectively create a full time wage from just one sale a day. So think about what products you are offering and whether it is worthwhile you promoting them.

3. Is your website appealing or is it outdated and full of spammy ads?

A professional looking website can make the difference between people staying and people clicking away. We’re not talking getting a professional designer in and spending thousands on a template – in fact the simplest templates are often the best. What we mean is following a few standard rules:

• Stick to the same font throughout. – Verdana, Tahoma or Arial are good standards. And don’t make the font too small.
• Get a logo or header made specifically for your site. This can really make a site look professional. Use RentaCoder or Elance for this or for only $25 you can get a logo done up by GotLogos.com.
• When using Google ads keep them left or right justified. I have often seen websites where a 250×250 Google ad sits right at the top of the article and you have to scroll down before you even get to the content. I click away as soon as I see this. It is fine to keep the Google Ads at the top, in fact we recommend it, but keep them left or right justified so that the article or content text runs along side the ads and not below it.
• Avoid placing ads all over your site. And definitely avoid ads that flash and pop-up. This is one quick way to get rid of visitors real fast. One of the best rules is to find big name sites like Yahoo and see where they place their ads. Remember that they have huge budgets and pay big dollars for expert help in this area.
• Don’t use too many different colors particularly with your fonts – stick to a few colors that blend well together.

4. Do you regularly add new and unique content to your website or blog?

Google loves fresh, new and unique content and your visitors are the same. If you have a blog, add at least 3 new blog posts a week – more would be better. If you have a website then add 3 article pages. It is better to add 3 good quality posts a week that provide value to the reader than 7 poorly written posts. You want visitors that leave comments and return to check out what you have to say. If you can’t manage 3 a week then set your goal at one a week. If you don’t have the time or you aren’t that great at writing an article, then get someone to write it for you using elance.com. It will cost you but it will also free up your time for other things.

5. Have you structured your website correctly?

Google loves links so ensure that they can easily spider all of the pages on your site. Try not to have too many levels of navigation. For example, if your site is about dogs and you sell dog beds you would be better off structuring it as follows – Dogs –> Dog Beds so that dog beds is linked to from the home page rather than Dogs –> Accessories —> Dog Beds. You are already two levels down so it is harder for Google to find and rank the pages.

6. Is your traffic targeted?

You could get thousands of visitors a day but if they are not targeted you will not make any money or at least not that much. This is why Stumbleupon visitors don’t really convert well. Although this site can bring in a lot of traffic these stumblers are really just randomly finding your site and will quickly click onto the next site if you don’t have anything that interests them.

7. Are you spreading yourself too thin?

If you have more than one website then it is time to narrow it down to only one or two and stick with them.

Focus on only one or two websites and we can guarantee that you will be more likely to suceed. You can devote more time, more articles and more money to just one or two. Don’t spread yourself too thin.

Set up a plan for yourself and make it one that you can easily stick to.

8. Testing, testing, testing

Testing is one of the most important things you can do. If you are using Google Adsense then start using URL channels to track exactly which pages on your website the clicks are coming from. If you are using Commission Junction then create SIDS in your affiliate links to track where your sales are coming from.

Google Website Optimizer is another tool that you can use to test multiple versions of the same page to see which page converts better than the other.

And lastly, enjoy what you do. If you like working on your websites then you are more likely to make them a valuable resource for your visitors.